When I started building my lifestyle business over 10 years ago, I was heading into the unknown without much of strategy.
It ended up working out great for me, but there are more than a few things I wish I would’ve known from the start.
I could’ve saved at least 18 months worth of time and effort if I knew what I know now.
In this article, I share my story of how I went from zero to $220K+ in 12 months, but I also share insights from the days before I had my breakthrough with virtual summits.
When it comes down to it, I put a mountain of effort into things that could’ve waited until well after my summit.
Live and learn, I suppose.
In this step-by-step guide you’ll discover how to start a lifestyle business even better and faster than I did (as you can learn from my success and mistakes).
Note: This in-depth guide on how to start a lifestyle business is several thousand words long, so you can check the table of contents below to jump to the section you’d like to dive in to more.
Lifestyle Business Definition: What Is a Lifestyle Business?
A lifestyle business is a business that pays you equally in revenue, quality of life, and awesome experiences. Almost any business idea can be scaled into a lifestyle business.
When you can live and work from anywhere, make your own schedule, and surround yourself with like-minded people, it’s easy to see how you can build a business that gives you the best life possible.
What a lifestyle business is in a nutshell:
This last point is the most important. If you can make genuine connections with leaders in your industry, you can build a successful lifestyle business.
Then you can use those relationships to provide real value to your audience, and BOOM!, you’re set.
For me, the key to unlocking my lifestyle business was to focus on the ONE THING that could build authority, generate revenue, develop strong relationships, and provide significant value: and that ONE THING was virtual summits.
What a Lifestyle Business Isn’t
Digital nomads and lifestyle entrepreneurs tend to over-glamorize the concept of a lifestyle business.
When I started building a presence online, I knew it was going to be a grind, and you should start your own lifestyle business with the same mentality.
What a lifestyle business isn’t:
I’m sure you’ve seen the iconic image of someone in their mid-twenties sitting on the beach with their MacBook Pro in their lap.
For one, the glare from the sun makes this impossible, and then there’s all the sand that would get into your computer, not to mention the wifi is probably pretty weak that far out on the beach.
Hype aside, starting a lifestyle business is the best decision I ever made, and I recommend it to almost everyone I meet.
Benefits Of Starting A Lifestyle Business
The path less traveled isn’t for everyone, but there are benefits to boot.
Here are some of the biggest benefits of starting a lifestyle business:
1. Flexible Schedule
When you design your lifestyle business from the ground up, you get to decide when to work and when to play.
To be real, a lot of the time unexpected problems will force you to switch up your schedule, but having a flexible schedule helps you put out fires and optimize your life.
2. Change Paths When You Need To
Most traditional jobs are hard to quit because of all the logistics that come along with putting in your notice, phasing yourself out, and finding a new job.
When you run your own lifestyle business, you can make this transition in one fluid motion.
3. Save Money Faster
There are many reasons why having a lifestyle business helps you save money, but they all come down to having more options.
There are a lot of limitations that come with having a traditional job or starting a traditional startup business.
Being locked in to one geographical location is the main limitation, but there are plenty of hidden limiting factors that you won’t see until you make the change and start a lifestyle business.
4. Live Where You Want
Tim Ferriss talks about what he calls “geoarbitrage” in his classic book The 4-Hour Work Week.
Living in a cheaper part of the world allows you to cut costs while selling your services to people from more expensive areas.
You get to save money while maximizing profits — it’s the perfect formula.
Plus, you can live in cities that offer an incredible quality of life. It’s a recipe for happiness and success.
5. Become More Adaptable
You’re going to need to think on your toes, problem solve, and think creatively more than you ever have before. With a lifestyle business, you’ll have the option to travel while you work.
The digital nomad lifestyle is full of logistical challenges that only exist on the road. Your adaptation skills will be on point.
6. Build Lifelong Relationships
The relationships you build through your lifestyle business can be some of the closest of your life.
The opportunity to become location independent and meet other lifestyle business owners opens doors for incredible friendships.
7. Have More Awesome Experiences
A lifestyle business places fun right up there with financial success.
When a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arises, you won’t have to get permission from your boss to take time off.
Instead, you’ll get to seize the moment when the moment comes. You only live once.
Here’s a video of me Skydiving in Cabo San Lucas a few years ago…
8. Learn New Skills
Skills pay the bills, and as a lifestyle entrepreneur, you’ll be stacking new skills as fast as you stack paper.
You need to wear so many different hats that you’ll inevitably become a more well-rounded professional.
9. More Time With Family and Friends
The flexibility that comes with running a lifestyle business allows you to spend more time with the people you love.
Time, not money, is the real currency of life, and becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur gives you more of it.
10. Greater Autonomy
I made lifestyle design my mission way back in 2013, and since then I’ve worked almost entirely solo.
I’ve utilized independent contractors several times, but for the most part I love the autonomy that being a solopreneuer brings.
11. Maximize Your Productivity
Optimize your schedule, optimize your happiness, and optimize your productivity.
When you get to wake up when you want to, work when you want, and play when you want, you get to find out what real productivity is.
12. Focus On Your Strengths
Focus on what you excel at and outsource the rest. The world is filled with people who already crush it with the things you suck at.
Why waste time trying to design websites when you can higher someone else to do it for a very reasonable price?
13. Surround Yourself with the Best
As a the owner of your own lifestyle business, you get to hand pick who you work with and you get to choose them from the best in the world.
Gone are the days when you only get to choose from the people in your area.
The world has opened up, and so have your options for team members and business partners.
14. Maximize Your Income
Income is the engine of life. The more money you make in the fewest amount of working hours, the more your life opens up to amazing experiences.
Once you hit a certain income level, you’ll get to start making the world a better place. Maximize your income and spread the love.
15. Maximize Personal Growth
What do all of the benefits of starting a lifestyle business ad up to?
Becoming the best version of yourself possible, as fast as possible. Prepare to launch your personal growth into the stratosphere.
Lifestyle Business Vs Growth Minded Startup Business: Which One Is Right For You?
Are you trying to grow your life or grow your business?
I suppose it’s a trick question, because with a lifestyle business the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
With a growth-minded startup business (think eating ramen noodles and living out of your car in Silicon Valley), entrepreneurs sacrifice everything for the sake of the business.
This period of extreme sacrifice is seen as a necessary part of the growth process.
Once you’re over the initial struggle, you continue to push forward to maximize profits in the shortest period of time.
Rewind to the idea of a lifestyle business, and you have a much different story.
Imagine living in a low-cost part of the world with a high standard of living.
You work regular hours, stay productive, a live a great life while growing your business.
Which one is right for you?
Both can be a means to the same end of financial freedom and a great life.
The question is, how much pain do you want to experience in the process?
I’m not saying that starting a lifestyle business doesn’t come with its sacrifices and struggles — it certainly does. The difference is that makes it a lot easier to enjoy process.
How to Build a Lifestyle Business Step-by-Step: From Zero to $220K+ In 12 Months
In this section of the ultimate guide to starting a lifestyle business, I will get more into my personal story, and try to break it down step-by-step, including some key takeaways for each of the 10 steps.
Although I started out online and did quite a bit of blogging and podcasting before I really focused on my ONE THING (after reading the book with the same name by Gary Papasan and Jay … ), what I share in this section is what I would have done if I started from scratch today….
I highly recommend you read The One Thing by the way… it’s one of the most impactful marketing and business books I’ve ever read.
In case you’re curious, my one thing was to focus on hosting my first virtual summit to exponentially grow my audience, influence and revenue very quickly, so I could finally quit my job and move abroad… and become a full-time lifestyle entrepreneur.
When I started to focus on this, I went from pretty much zero and really struggling at times with sporadic income here and there to $220K+ in 12 months (December 2014 – December 2015).
I’ve shared before on the blog how I’ve made well over $1 million dollars from my online business and built a pretty large email list over the years of engaged subscribers, but it all started with my very first virtual summit, and the momentum I built up afterwards.
With that being said, let’s get into the first step so I can walk you through everything I did to go from zero to build a 6-figure lifestyle business very quickly.
Step 1: Find Your Profitable Idea
The first thing you need to do is to find your profitable lifestyle business idea.
I had been talking about personal branding for quite some time on my site, and I wanted to position myself as the go-to personal branding expert, so it felt pretty natural for me to focus on this moving forward.
If I could do it all over again, I probably would narrow down my niche even more as “personal branding” is a bit broad and can cover a ton of different topics around marketing, online business etc.
Start With The Communities You Belong To
Years from now, when you’re a lifestyle business master, you’ll be able to instinctually sniff out the best lifestyle business ideas and the best niches.
As a beginner, the best strategy is to start with the communities that you already belong to.
If you’re super into the ketogenic diet, belong to a few keto Facebook groups, and frequent a few keto blogs, then you’re already in touch with that audience.
Think of what that audience finds valuable, what their biggest pain points are, and brainstorm business ideas that provide solutions to their biggest problems.
Make A List Of Your Biggest Strengths
What can you bring to the table that most people can’t?
Is there something that your friends and family always come to you for advice about?
If you’re the guru for website optimization amongst your friends and colleagues, then exploring the SEO niche might be a good place to start (it’s also one of the most competitive niches to rank for online, so you’ve been warned!).
Put a Unique Twist On It
It’s almost guaranteed that there’s already a version of your lifestyle business out there, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it better and put your own spin on it.
Connecting directly with an audience is 50% quality product and 50% style and delivery.
Guys in their mid-twenties who want to learn about fitness have different tastes than women in their early forties.
You can appeal directly to your target demographic by adding your own flair.
Narrow Down Your Niche Until It Hurts
One of the most common mistakes that people make when hosting their first virtual summit / online lifestyle business is that they go too broad. I definitely feel like I was guilty of this with my first summit.
For one, there’s less competition in niche markets.
Second, the more you niche down the more directly you’ll connect with a core group of people, and you’ll be able to position yourself as the go-to expert a lot faster.
This is perfect because you can target very specific pain points.
Here are some examples of perfectly-niched summits:
Key Takeaways
Step 2: Validate Your Idea
When I had decided on the the profitable idea I wanted to go after, you need to validate that idea as well to ensure it can work.
Besides talking to people in my audience and on social media in different groups and forums, I wrote an expert round-up post in early 2014 featuring 37 expert who share their best personal branding tips.
There are other ways to test the water too, like:
What Validation Is
The last thing you want to do is pour your heart and soul into a product that nobody’s interested in. Validation means minimizing the chance of this happening.
You need as much certainty as possible that your product will become a sustainable business model, and to do this there has to be substantial demand.
Ideally, you confirm interest by selling pre-orders.
There’s no greater comfort than already being in the green before your product is even finished.
What Validation Isn’t
Validation isn’t a guarantee.
In reality, it’s a fancy way of easing your anxieties about the outcome of a project, but if you validate your business idea thoroughly you can be over 90% sure that it’s going to be a smash hit.
The final 10% rests on you to deliver a phenomenal product.
In the end, the ultimate validation is a bunch of happy customers. Nothing says “validation” like a positive reviews.
Key Takeaways
- Check Circle
- Check Circle
Step 3: Host a Virtual Summit in Your Niche
I’ve been able to generate well over $1 million in profits from my lifestyle business in a very short period of time, and it’s all thanks to virtual summits.
In this lifestyle business guide I’ll focus how my first summit I hosted completely transformed my entire business and life for the better.
What Is A Virtual Summit?
A virtual summit is an online event that brings together a group of influencer experts on a specific topic. You can think of it as a webinar or podcast on steroid.
For my first virtual event, The Branding Summit, I brought together 88 industry leaders on the topic of branding your business, and hosted it over 30 days.
These days, I tend to recommend that you feature 20-30 influencers in your niche, and host the summit over 5-7 days (that’s a more ideal length, so you don’t have to work harder for similar results).
Benefits of Virtual Summits
I don’t know about you, but I love virtual summits for the perks, and there’s plenty of them.
Here’s just a few of the benefits:
Benefit #1: Grow an email list by allowing people to tune into the recordings of the event for free within the first 24-48 hours. I generated 3,000 new email subscribers this way with The Branding Summit.
Benefits #2: You generate revenue by selling all-access passes (even if you’ve never sold anything online before). I typically charge $67 per an all-access pass (discounted from $97 if they act now). People who buy an all-access pass get lifetime access to the recordings of the event.
Benefit #3: Because you’re the person who brought together a group of industry leaders, people will see you as an authority in the niche, even if you have no experience and are learning about the subject just like they are.
Benefit #4: It’s a win-win for you and the speakers. They help you promote the event, expose you to their audience, generate revenue, and grow your email list. They benefit from the exposure to new audiences.
How I Crushed It With My First Virtual Summit
My first virtual summit (The Branding Summit) well-exceeded what I could’ve ever anticipated.
I had doubts the weeks before the launch of the summit, but I pushed through, and I’m so glad I did.
The first sale came almost instantly after making the summit go live and sharing it with my at the time very small email list.
It felt amazing to make that first sale right away, as it was from someone in “rural” Russia, that I had never met before in my life.
Then it snowballed after that…
I made the second sale a few minutes later…
And all of a sudden I was making sales while I sleep, which was a surreal experience as it was the first time It happened to me.
During the summit I finally quit my part-time job on November 28th, 2014… and that same day my I earned over $5,400, mostly from selling the summit all-access pass.
My email list were also growing by 100’s subscribers a day early on during the promotion since the influencers shared it with their email lists, and I the summit went a little bit viral around social media as well…
In addition to generating a total of around 3,000 new email subscribers (I only had a few hundred before the summit), I generated well over $20K in revenue directly from the summit launch.
I couldn’t believe dozens of influencers promoted me to their email lists, but that’s what can happen if you put together en epic summit just the way I did. I was extremely grateful for their support of course.
In the month following my summit, I raked in an additional $40K as an affiliate for Ramit Sethi’s online course (more on that in step 4 where I talk about affiliate marketing).
Here’s how I hosted my first summit in a nutshell:
I designed my ideal customer avatar.
Like I said before, I wish I would’ve targeted an even more specific type of business owner, but it ended up being narrow enough.
You want to understand their problems so well that it feels like you’re reading their mind.
I positioned my summit for success.
Even in a crowded market, you can stand out if you put your own unique spin on it.
This is why “putting a unique twist on it” was one of our evaluation factors for a profitable idea.
Created a timeline.
Map out everything you have to do, from connecting with influencers, to arranging affiliate partnerships.
Once speakers start to commit you’ll be locked in, so it’s critical to make sure that you have enough time to get it all done.
Identify incredible speakers.
Make a dream list of your ideal speakers and target the highest-value ones first.
Target people that have a large audience that matches your ideal customer avatar… the more aligned they are with your brand and products / services, the better.
Once you land that first big speaker, you’ll be able to generate excitement when you reach out to the other people on your list.
Land speakers by adding value.
Don’t just ask your speakers to join. Instead, offer value by commenting on their blog posts, sharing their content on your blog or other platforms, introducing them to people they want to meet, or giving them a killer case study.
Set up a virtual summit funnel / website
Now it’s time to get technical and start getting people to sign up.
Without getting into too many details here, you will need to use something like Thrive Architect or ClickFunnels to create your summit funnel and pages.
You also need an email service provider like ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign so you can deliver your summit automatically via email.
And don’t worry if you don’t have an existing audience.
That’s what’s so great about summits — your speakers will help you promote to their audiences. You just have to create a place for them to sign up.
Did I do everything perfect the first time?
Absolutely not, and it was still a smash hit. Over the last several years I’ve continued to host virtual conferences and hone my technique.
Note: I didn’t go into so many details here about how to actually host a virtual summit, as I do have a 16,000+ word free ultimate guide you can check out here. I cover the steps a lot more in-depth there, but if you’d like all our training, done for-you-resources and templates so that you can host a wildly summit a lot faster, then the premium Virtual Summit Mastery program is for you.
Key Takeaways
Step 4: Launch a Pilot of Your First Online Course
Around the time I launched my first virtual summit and built an audience of 3,000+ engaged email subscribers, I started to get so many questions from many of them about how I pulled it off (and for a good reason, the summit was pretty epic if I do say so myself)…
I got questions like:
That’s when I decided that it was time to launch a pilot of my first online course on how to create a wildly successful virtual summit (even if you’re starting from scratch) called Virtual Summit Mastery.
Here’s a screenshot of the private VSM FB group in the early days… (I’ve upped the game since then, and we have well over 500 top performers in the private VSM community today and it’s growing every day).
Although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this approach today if I would do it all over again, I simply announced it during the live “Kick-Off” event on my summit, and invited people to buy it as part of the all-access pass for just $97.
Looking back, I would have been much better off to wait, and launch the pilot / founders circle of Virtual Summit Mastery after the summit on a webinar.
That way I could have started with a price to anywhere from $500-$1,000.
But since it was my first online course, and I didn’t really have much experience putting one together before, I’m still very happy with how it turned out. I pre-sold it, so people voted with their credit card, and then started to create the pilot for VSM.
I kept increasing the price for several months all the way up to $697 before I did my first launch for the 1.0 version of Virtual Summit Mastery (more on that in step 8 below).
I got my first few dozen VSM students that way and it brought in over $10,000 without much marketing at all (apart from mentioning it during my summit, I talked about it here and there to my email list, but didn’t do a big push for it until the first bigger launch later in 2015).
I focused on building up the VSM community and getting really awesome case studies from there as well (see step 7).
In fact I got quite a few requests for more personal consulting and helping people run their summits after they saw my success and the engagement I got from my email list. I did help a few people do that, such as Chandler Bolt (more on that in the case study section below as well).
That said, I highly recommend that you just prepare a solid outline and some kind of webinar were you introduce your online course… don’t spend weeks or months creating something if you aren’t sure people will actually buy (I’ve learned this the hard way before).
Key Takeaways
Step 5: Do Affiliate Marketing the “Right Way”
The month after I hosted my first summit (in January 2015), I decided to participate in a big affiliate launch for Ramit Sethi’s Zero to Launch program.
I recommend that you do have experience with the course, program or tool you’re promoting to your audience, preferably with real results as it’s a lot more authentic that way.
I had previously promoted Ramit successfully and made a few affiliate sales, although I had never gone “all in” for a promotion before like this.
I got the swipe copy from Ramit’s affiliate manager a few weeks before the launch, so I could start preparing for it.
It was great I got the resources in advance as I was enjoying the freedom lifestyle in Cabo San Lucas at the time, so I was quite busy exploring and doing experiences every day that month.
Whenever you get some “swipe copy”, I highly recommend you do not just copy paste, and send the emails to your list without much effort. Modify and share your own personal stories… that goes a long way and it will convert a lot better too.
I didn’t really know what to expect from this promotion, but I knew I had built a very engaged email list by hosting my first virtual summit recently (at the time I had about 3600 people on my list).
It still had a much smaller list than some of the other big affiliates who participated like John Lee Dumas, Laura Roeder and many more. So I never thought I would have a chance to win the $7,500 cash prize Ramit offered (basically the person who had the most sales got the best chance of winning).
The launch finally kicked off around mid January 2015 and I started sharing Ramit’s pre-launch content via email with my own personal stories (as I had taken the program before myself).
One big pro tip here is to send emails to your unopens as well the day after (to anyone who didn’t open the initial email, most email service providers have a feature like this). You can get 10-20% more opens by doing this, so it’s well worth it.
I shared the different lead magnets to my email list, and I got about 440 people who signed up and raised their hand to say they’re highly interested in this content (counted as “leads” / “optins” for the launch).
I still didn’t know what to expect at this point…
But then something amazing happened when the cart opened…
I remember it like it was yesterday…
It was Monday evening….
I was sitting on the beach in Cabo San Lucas enjoying the sunset…
And after Ramit hosted his “sales” webinar, I started to get sale after sale…
I was blown away…
I earned $800-$1200 per sale depending on the tier they signed up for.
The morning after open cart, I had earned around $10,000 in commissions.
And it didn’t stop there.
I promoted it a few times during the launch to my email list to remind them, and included a few extra bonuses (like my summit, and the pilot program for VSM), which helped a bit. The more specific your bonuses are, the better… they should complement the program you’re promoting.
I didn’t really structure the promo the way I’ve done for other launches where I’ve made a lot more since then, but at the time for being my first big affiliate launch I participated in, I was very happy.
I got a few sales here and there during the week, and it started to add up quite nicely.
I was top 2 or 3 on the leaderboard from start to finish.
And then we came to the last day… cart close day!
I sent one or two emails that day to remind my audience about it, and share more why I think they should sign up.
Sale after sale started to roll in…
When I woke up the next morning I had 32 or 33 sales, and I got notified I was Ramit’s #1 affiliate. I beat all the other big names that had email lists of 50,000+ people in some cases…
That just goes to show that email list size doesn’t matter… it’s all about the engagement, and a virtual summit is the best way to get paid to build a highly engaged list as you’ve seen by me sharing my personal story and results in this post.
A few days after, Ramit also notified me that I had won his grand cash prize of $7,500, which I deserved since I also had the most sales for his launch.
All in all I earned over $40,000 from a relatively small, but engaged email list, and that set me up for the rest of the year to take my online lifestyle business to multiple 6-figures.
Ramit even invited me to lunch in LA a few months later, during the time I lived in San Diego, which was pretty cool.
This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t add value to him early on by interviewing some of his successful students when he first launched his program in 2014…
You need to say yes to more opportunities as you’re starting your business (then as you grow, you can start to say no more to things that don’t excite you as much).
In addition to promoting Zero to Launch a few times during that year, I also won a few other affiliate competitions for launches I participated in, which brought in multiple 5-figures in revenue.
All in all, I generated well over 6-figures from ethical affiliate marketing in 2015, and it has been a very nice revenue stream for my lifestyle business ever since.
I continued promoting Ramit from time to time until they closed the affiliate program in 2017, and I generated around 6-figures from it in a short time (just from promoting one influencer’s products, which is pretty incredible).
These days I’m focusing more on evergreen affiliate marketing, and promoting products and tools I use in product reviews and via email.
For example I wrote in-depth reviews like:
- Quiz Masterclass Review
- TRIBE Course Review
- ThriveCart Review
- ConvertKit Review
- Deadline Funnel Review
I wrote about my approach to this a bit more in my 2018 Annual Review.
Besides writing in-depth reviews about a product/tool on your blog, you can also record a video walkthrough + review and publish it on YouTube.
Finally, a low hanging fruit anyone can implement easily is to create a resources page on your website, where you feature your favorite resources and tools that’s relevant to your audience (this page can be the most profitable page on your website assuming you get some traffic to it).
Key Takeaways
Step 6: Promote Yourself And Get Featured On Podcasts & Bigger Publications
It’s not always that easy to promote yourself.
I get it, you don’t want to come across as pushy or arrogant.
I felt the same way in the early days before things really started to take off.
The biggest advice I can give you if you’d like to get featured on podcasts and bigger publications around the web is to do something great that’s noteworthy.
Although it’s possible to grow your email list from publicity (as you’ll see from my personal example below), it’s mostly great for establishing your authority and get the word out there more about your business and brand (it can be great for backlinks to your website too of course).
In my case I had just hosted an epic virtual summit featuring 88 world-class entrepreneurs and personal branding experts, which definitely got people’s attention in the online marketing space.
And over time I had built up many relationships with people in my niche, and that also helps quite a bit when it comes to outreach.
The first big publication I was featured in was Business Insider.
My friend Primoz Bozic introduced to the writer and editor of the finance section of Business Insider.
This introduction didn’t happen by chance though… we had built a relationship online for several months, and I even featured him on The Branding Summit.
When the article went live on Business Insider it went viral… 100,000’s of views and my email list grew very quickly by 2,000+ new subscribers (and even more over time).
That said, it’s usually very hard to see this level of email list growth from publicity features these days, so I guess I was a bit lucky in this regard.
I also hustled quite a bit to reach out to some podcasts myself, and some reached out to me when they heard of my lifestyle business success story.
It wasn’t long before I got featured again in this Business Insider article, and it also got a ton of traction.
Another professional connection of mine paid off in a similar fashion, and around August 2015 Alex Pirouz published this article about me in the HuffPost.
One of my proudest moments in the promotion of my personal brand is the interview I did with John Lee Dumas on his Entrepreneurs On Fire podcast. I crushed it!
Aside from killing the interview, the real accomplishment was landing it in the first place.
The key was how I offered value… you need be able to serve their audience first and foremost, that’s what any podcast host would care about.
Here’s what the outreach email I sent to JLD looked like:
At the time, he wasn’t accepting interviews, but he said he’d make an exception for me because he knew I could provide value.
Here’s what one of the listeners said:
When you have the opportunity, be sure to go to some in-person industry events and masterminds as well.
That can speed up the process when it comes to building relationships with influencers, and getting featured on podcasts / bigger publications around the web.
I went to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego Spring 2015, and that’s also when I connected with Chandler Bolt in person who became one of our biggest success stories ever for VSM.
Key Takeaways
Step 7: Focus On Getting Case Studies For Your Online Course
Without success stories and students actually getting results from your online course or coaching program, it will be very hard for you to make things work and get sales.
That’s why I made my #1 metric in my business to focus on student success more than anything.
And it paid off big time…
It’s even more important in the early stages of your business when you don’t have any and you really have to prove yourself that you can help others achieve similar or better results than yourself.
I worked hard on helping people who joined the pilot program of Virtual Summit Mastery, but I also brought on a few higher end clients, including a partnership with Chandler Bolt of Self-Publishing School.
Chandler had seen my lifestyle business case study and success, and he was impressed with how engaged my audience was (and I was Ramit’s #1 affiliate too).
We partnered up, and decided to host the Self-Publishing Success Summit.
At the time he had about 10,000 email subscribers on his list, but he wanted to scale quickly.
We set the goal to double the number of email subscribers, but we got a ton more and crushed our goal big time.
When it was all said and done, the summit got around 30,000 optins and $330K in revenue (from both all-access pass and backend sales for his course).
Because of the summit success and all the relationships he built, Chandler scaled his online lifestyle business to 7 figures (and took it to another level the following year after hosting another summit, with similar results).
I also got a very nice multi 5-figure pay-day for helping him with the summit as part of the partnership (I’ve learned a thing or two, and would change a quite a bit if I did it all over today to get paid even more, but I’ll leave that for another time).
This was also the first major multi 6 -7 figure success story that came out of VSM (now there are 100’s of success stories, both big and small).
The biggest tip I can give her is to build real relationships with your students. Don’t put yourself above them… instead be their friend and it’ll go along way.
That’s why it’s very easy for me to just reach out on Facebook or email, and get someone to do a case study interview with me, or send me a video testimonial.
After we saw someone had great success, we recorded a 15-30 minute video interview with them where they shared where they were before taking Virtual Summit Mastery, the results they got, and how it changed their business and life after hosting their successful summit.
Since the early days, we’ve stepped up the quality quite a bit on the case studies, but it doesn’t really matter as long as they’re real. The more authentic, the better.
Key Takeaways
Step 8: Launch Your Online Course To Your Email List
Around June or July 2015, I decided it was time to finally make a big push to launch the first official version of my online course Virtual Summit Mastery 1.0 to my email list.
I went all in to record the program and create the members area since I already had paying customers, and new ones who constantly were asking me when I would launch the program to the public.
I also had several case studies I could use during the promotion, so it was a great timing.
It took a bit longer than I expected to prepare for the launch and create all the resources I needed, so I didn’t do the launch until September 2015.
I did a typical Jeff Walker style Product Launch Formula launch with a 3-part video series, which I promoted to my email list I had built up (mostly by hosting my first virtual event).
I just recorded valuable slide presentations using ScreenFlow, so it wasn’t really fancy production by any means, but it worked surprisingly well despite the limited time I had to get it done.
I also had a few friends who I did partner webinars with during the launch that helped a little bit, but I wouldn’t recommend bringing on big affiliates at this stage as you need to first do at least one successful launch to know your numbers to see if it converts well.
I believe I had about a 10 day open cart period for the launch for I closed the doors. I added some urgency with limited time bonuses and early bird pricing as well.
It’s very important you have a deadline, otherwise people will most likely not end up buying any time soon if they think they can buy your online course whenever.
You typically get a big spike right when you open the doors if you add some limited-time bonuses/early bird pricing, and then you get another big spike on close cart day.
You can increase the sales a bit more if you add some extra bonuses in the days between open cart and close cart as well.
I did a live webinar and Q&A during the open cart period as well, but that just served to answer questions from people who were on the fence more than driving a ton of new sales directly.
Now what were my results from this first online course launch?
Since this was my first online course launch, I honestly didn’t really know what to expect at all.
I set my big goal to $40K…
And in the first day of open cart, I already had about $15K of sales…. I was blown away to say the least as I had never made that type of money in one day before.
Then it continued from there…
When it was all said and done, this launch generated over $60K from a small launch list of 1,600 people who opted in for the launch.
When people bought they got instant access to my members area (I used Wishlist Member at the time, but I would recommend that you start with Teachable or Thinkific… it’s so much easier, and looks a lot better out of the box).
After the launch, I also did a non-buyer survey to figure to learn more why people didn’t buy so I could improve for the next one a few months later in 2016 (which turned into a $200K launch by the way).
My favorite shopping cart and affiliate system I use these days is called ThriveCart, and I wish it was around when I did this first online course launch. It would have saved myself a ton of headaches (fortunately I did find a work around during the launch, but I would have saved so much time if I’d been using ThriveCart instead).
What I would recommend if I would do it all over again today is to simply host one or two solid live webinars, and then do a 5-7 day open cart with some urgency and limited-time bonuses mixed in to increase conversion.
That would have been a lot easier to execute than what I did with a 3-part video series and a 10-day open cart period (which in my opinion is very long for a live launch like this)…. keep things simple where you can, especially as you’re getting started!
Read my ultimate guide on how to create and sell an online course here.
Key Takeaways
Step 9: Do Partner Webinars and / or One-Day Summits
After my first successful online course launch, I lined up a few partner webinars with other experts in my industry.
Two of them I did shortly after the launch before the end of 2015 was with Chandler Bolt and Regina Anaejionu.
A partner webinar is just like a regular webinar but you host it together with another influencer to their audience, and they promote you to their email list.
It can take the form of a webinar with a pitch at the end where you promote your course, or a non-pitch webinar where you focus on adding massive value and building the relationships more.
So you may ask how do you get someone to do a partner webinar with you?
I wrote an entire ultimate guide on influencer marketing, but I’ll share a few tips and strategies here as well.
One thing that will help is if you’ve built up relationships with influencers previously, for example your speakers on your virtual summit.
Keep in mind that no one is going to want to promote an unproven course, so make sure you have some case studies and proof that what you teach actually works before you start reaching out to do partner webinars.
If the influencer you want to get on board for a partner webinar doesn’t really do too many promotions, consider offering to do a non-pitch webinar where you add massive value for free for 60 minutes + Q&A.
Here’s an example of how I reached out to Regina, and she said YES almost right away:
Then you just need to create the webinar registration and thank you page using a tool like Thrive Architect or ClickFunnels.
You can consider using a webinar software like Easy Webinar or WebinarJam to host the actual webinar, but it could also be done by just embedding a YouTube live on a web page together with a chat.
You need to make sure you provide the influencer everything they need to be successful with the promo, so prepare swipe copy, graphics and things like that they can use.
I always provide partners with an “Affiliate Packet” and “Swipe Copy” in a Google Doc, which goes a long way to show that you’re professional and take this seriously.
The webinar we hosted was incredibly successful… people loved the content I shared and 1,000+ people signed up to my email list (from just 2-3 promo emails from Regina).
I also did another webinar together with Chandler as I mentioned, and it also got about 1,000 new people signed up to my email list and $1,000’s in sales for Virtual Summit Mastery (this was a more traditional sales webinar with a pitch at the end).
Another alternative you can consider in between bigger virtual summits, is to host mini-summits / one-day summits.
Here’s a quick rundown of how the one-day summit strategy works:
Overall, it’s pretty similar to the partner webinar strategy outlined above, but you’ll do it with a small handful of speakers instead of just one other influencer.
It’s a powerful marketing strategy and is a great way to fill in the promotional gaps between bigger virtual summits.
Key Takeaways
Step 10: Set Up Systems So You Can Scale Your Online Lifestyle Business
One thing I wish I would have done a lot better from the very beginning is to develop systems and processes for my business (SOPs).
You can simply record your screen with a tool like Loom when you’re doing a task, and use a tool like Process Street to document them, which is what I do now together with my team.
We also use Airtable in my business to organize tasks and projects, which essentially is like Google Sheets on steroids (but it also has some neat Project Management features as well).
I recommend you do this even if you don’t have a single team member right now… simply record everything you’re doing to ensure you have processes and systems for everything… it will be so much easier to hire people later on if you do that.
Although I worked with quite a few contractors (including an awesome designer who I’ve worked with since the very beginning), I waited until Spring 2016 to hire my first virtual assistant.
I probably should have brought someone on sooner than I did, but overall it worked out pretty well as I hired contractors when I needed something done.
That said, I went from making almost nothing to multiple 6-figures before I hired an assistant to work for me.
Then I went from making low 6-figures to making over $600K the year after, and we could take on a few more projects that way.
One thing worth thinking about here is that you don’t necessarily need to aim to scale a lifestyle business to millions of dollars if you don’t want to.
You can just maintain it at a solid level if that’s what you want too, and that’s perfectly fine if you’re happy with the business and lifestyle you’ve created for yourself.
I think that an online lifestyle business that’s generating multiple 6 figures with high profit is better than a very low profit business that’s generating 7 figures for example as it suits my lifestyle better.
So it’s important to think what you really want and don’t compare yourself to other influencers or successful entrepreneurs… it’s your business and life after all, always remember that!
Key Takeaways
Bonus Step: Level Up Your Branding & Design
You can build a 6-figure lifestyle business without focusing on branding and design.
In fact, I know many lifestyle entrepreneurs with pretty crappy websites who still make a lot of money from their business.
That said, I do believe you can stand out from the crowd by having a really awesome designed website, photos / social media images and all that.
For the longest time, I didn’t have anything special either.
I learned how to start a blog and set up my WordPress website on my own with a template.
I didn’t have any professional photos of me in the early days.
Around December 2013 to early 2014, I did a big update, and got a more custom design, but I still had pretty crappy low resolution images of myself on there.
It wasn’t until my lifestyle business really took off after hosting my first summit end of 2014 that I started thinking more about it.
Of course I had a pretty nice design for my summit, but I still didn’t have any great professional photos of me I could use to promote myself on social media and on my website.
Ask any personal branding expert, and they will tell you that you should at least have a few professional photos of yourself (and I like mixing it up with some lifestyle shots as well).
In June 2015 I went to NYC to speak at a Zero to Launch Accelerator event Ramit Sethi put together, and at the same time did a photoshoot with Katya Nicholas.
It had always been a dream of mine to do a photoshoot in NYC for a day, and the photos turned out pretty amazing… I’m still using many of them today (although I have my own professional gear now, and will take more photos while traveling the world).
It doesn’t even have to be that expensive to hire a photographer for a few hours… I’m honestly not sure why I waited so long to do this.
Here’s a few of the photos from my NYC photoshoot (which still represent who I am and what my brand stand for pretty well):
Since that time, i’ve been very focused to have a certain look and feel to my brand, and we’ve done 2-3 iterations of my website since 2015 (the last one towards the end of 2018).
The most important thing when it comes to branding and design is to stay consistent on your website and across all your social media account.
It will not only make you look more professional, but people will easier be able to recognize your brand which is a very good thing.
Key Takeaways
10 Other Successful Online Lifestyle Business Ideas and Examples You Can Model To Start Your Own
No matter what your business idea, virtual summits can help explode your growth…FAST.
Hosting virtual events isn’t entirely mandatory for success, but it is smart.
Most of the lifestyle entrepreneurs that end up making it have a relatively slow journey to the top, and many spend at least a few months to a year playing with different strategies, starting over from scratch, or failing entirely.
I spent 18 months playing that game until I found the ONE THING that lit my business one fire.
Here are some successful lifestyle business owners that leveraged their own unique ideas to design their ideal lifestyle.
1. Mitch Asser – Fast Way To Health
Mitch Asser used runs FastWayToHealth.com (before he sold it to a large health company), a membership site that helps people become healthier with intermittent fasting.
In addition to selling access to his site, he also sells all-access passes to the recordings of his virtual summits.
Before hosting his first virtual summit, Mitch was a personal trainer with no experience working online.
Over the course of six summits, Mitch generated well over six-figures in revenue and went from zero to 35K+ email subscribers.
2. Steph Gaudreau – StephGaudreau.com
Steph was a school teacher for 12 years when she decided to leave it all and focus solely on her one-year-old blog, StupidEasyPaleo.com, which did quite well, but she wanted to transition and focus more on strength training for women (which was her true passion).
While researching marketing strategies, Steph came across Virtual Summit Mastery and decided to give it a try.
Steph hosted the Women’s Strength Summit, and it did better than she ever could have imagined since this was her first summit.
Steph sold over 600 all-access passes to her first summit and grew her email list by nearly 20K subscribers. Then she hosted another summit the year after before turning into an evergreen summit (which she learned in VSM).
She monetizes her personal brand blog, StephGaudreau.com, with online courses, a membership program, podcast sponsorships, affiliate sales and evergreen virtual summit all-access pass sales.
3. Chandler Bolt – Self-Publishing School
Chandler Bolt is a Virtual Summit Mastery graduate and founder of the Self-Publishing School, arguably the world’s leader in self-publishing education.
Chandler has helped thousands write and launch their first books. Virtual summits helped position Self-Publishing School at the top of the industry.
The summits alone generated $700K in revenue and 60K email subscribers.
Chandler’s first two summits took Self-Publishing School from a low six-figure to a multi-million dollar business.
He built relationships with 100+ influencers in his industry who spread the word about his products and services which is priceless.
4. Benny Lewis – Fluent In 3 Months
Benny Lewis is a best-selling author and founder of Fluent In 3 Months, a community and resource for language learners. His course is one of the leading online courses for language learning.
His book, Fluent In 3 Months, continues to be a source of income. Benny also monetizes through various affiliate programs and several online courses, including Say Goodbye to Shy and Conversation Countdown.
5. Neville Medhora – CopywritingCourse.com
Neville is a serial entrepreneur turned serial online course creator.
He’s fascinated with effective sales copy. One of his best-selling courses is called CopywritingCourse.
Neville makes between 12K and 52K a month selling his online courses while doing consulting on the side.
85% of his content is on KopywritingKourse.com, but you can also find him here.
6. Diana Rowan – Harpist
Diana Rowan is an award-winning composer, harpist, performing musician, and music professor.
She had very little experience online prior to hosting her first virtual summit, which she was able to sell 460 all-access passes to and generate 2,100 email subscribers.
It just goes to show that virtual summits can be effective in any niche.
Diana continues to work as a performance musician and sells her music online.
7. Christian Leblanc – LostLeblanc.com
Christian Leblanc, more popularly known as Lost Leblanc, is a 28-year-old Instagram influencer and YouTuber in the travel niche.
Leblanc started traveling Southeast Asia with a GoPro right after college and never looked back. His YouTube channel has close to 2 million subscribers.
Leblanc makes money with AdSense, sponsorships, affiliate sales, merch, and online course sales for videography and photography.
In this video, Leblanc breaks down exactly how he makes money online:
8. Gael Breton and Mark Webster – Authority Hacker
Gael and Mark have been building profitable affiliate marketing websites together since 2013.
Their portfolio of affiliate sites continues to generate millions of dollars in revenue. Their online course, Authority Hacker, teaches other people how to do the same.
9. Julie Dargan – The Menopause Whisperer
Julie Dargan is a lifestyle consultant who sells online courses that help women deal with menopause.
She’s hosted several successful virtual summits and more than doubled her email list to 6k subscribers.
One of her more recent summits generated $18K in revenue. She also makes money on the backend with other summits and books. You can find Julie and her products at MenopauseWhisperer.com.
10. Robby Barbao and Cyrus Khambatta – Mastering Diabetes
Robby and Cyrus co-hosted the Mastering Diabetes Online Summit, which doubled their email list and generated significant revenue.
They continue to sell all-access passes to the recordings of their events and make additional sales on the backend.
They also sell their services as health coaches through their website, MasteringDiabetes.org.
Your Next Steps: Start Your Lifestyle Business Today
Are you ready to jump start your own successful lifestyle business with virtual summits?
Here’s what you need to do next:
- Find a profitable idea (make sure you niche down until it hurts).
- Validate your idea by testing the waters in forums and Facebook groups.
- Host a virtual summit in your niche.
- Launch a pilot version of your online course to the email list you grew with virtual summits.
- Sell affiliate products off the backend of your summit.
- Promote yourself and get featured in major publications and media outlets.
- Get case studies for your online course.
- Launch your online course to your email list.
- Do partner webinars and mini-summits.
- Systematize and scale your lifestyle business.
- Bonus: Level up your branding & design.
That’s it…. there’s a lot of hard work that goes into building a successful lifestyle business, but if you commit yourself that you’ll make it work no matter what, you’ll eventually be successful.
And if you follow the steps outlined in this guide, you’ll be well on your way.
FAQ: Top Lifestyle Business Questions Answered
What is a lifestyle business?
A lifestyle business is a type of business that is primarily designed to support the owner’s desired lifestyle and personal goals, rather than focusing solely on financial growth or scaling.
